If you’re worried about that, buy it when it appears in store or online.
Tell me when the US government uses the system of votes and representation, do they pay loyalty fees to Greece the country which developed democracy first? Or is the US government stealing from Greece?
When typing your post using the Roman alphabet did you pay for the right to use these characters? Did you pay the people of Italy the descendants of Rome? That’s also stealing.
When you do math sums do you pay the people who developed the axioms on which modern arithmetic is based?
Do you continuously pay the guy who did your home’s plumbing and who used his intellectual property to link your pipes? Do you pay your dentist every time you eat because you know he did those fillings in your teeth and now you’re pain free?
We we pay the people of Egypt when we use paper, a technology they first developed?
In Copyright there is this convenient convention set up very recently that for some reason some works are protected while others are not. The people who set these conventions did so in a prospective manner. I don’t see a reason why we’re not stealing when we use the alphabet or do math sums of any of the other things, just because some fat cats at some stage decided it would destroy the whole rationale for their artificial monopoly.
Ehhh…some of that’s a bit of a stretch (especially since even copyright laws have provisions for things entering into the public domain after a given period of time. And some of that is dang near impossible to copyright. I don’t recall any governmental process ever being recognized as being able to be copyrighted. In most cases, the creator of the alphabet is unknown, and most alphabets did not have a single creator. Alphabets furthermore are intended to be basically open-source. Anyone can use them. Math is the same thing. The same could be said for various mathematical functions, which existed before the person devised them. He/she was just the first or best to explain them.
As for the dentist and plumbing and such, you have already presumably paid for their services when you originally sought them. Furthermore, unless they have a special or unique process or service, they can hardly claim a copyright on what they provide, since you could go to another plumber or dentist and get a similar kind of service at similar quality and a similar price (presumably, of course).
The paper example is fairly good, and certain techniques for making paper are patented. However, the general process for making paper is so old and well known by now that it would have passed down into the public domain even if copyright laws had existed back then.
The idea behind intellectual property is that you have created something so unique, such as a character, story, painting, or symbol, that is so unique that it merits protecting and obliging others to pay to use your work. You might be using ink, paints, paper, etc. developed by others to express your idea, and you might have been inspired by another work. However, it could be fairly said that the idea is yours. These things are not generally held to include cultural things like alphabets or government works or forms of governance.
Now, there are some good criticisms of intellectual property copyright, but that’s the basic gist of it.
Now, I certainly think copyright law needs to be reformed on a major level, particularly with regards to intellectual property, but let’s use some better examples.
Anyways, I would certainly not advocate reading manga online if it is available legally in your country. I don’t really like reading that which isn’t available, either. I can’t say whether it is right or wrong, mostly because the laws on this matter are certainly imperfect. However, I think it’s fair to say that an artist deserves remuneration for his or her work if A) it is worthy of it and/or B) it is legally required and the artist has not foregone such a right.
And none of this post takes into account the doctrines of fair use, parody, and other certain things where it is okay to use copyrighted stuff without paying the person, people, or institution behind it.
Anyways, none of this was what I came here for.
What I came here for is to ask if anyone has seen the Tsukihi OP for Nisemonogatari? Oh man, it’s so awesome and cuuuute!
. But it was worth it just to see Sasuke’s face.
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